1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink-jet recording apparatus which performs a printing by ejecting ink droplets.
2. Description of Related Art
An ink-jet printer is known which prints an image on a recording paper as a recording medium by ejecting ink droplets to the recording paper. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-36568 discloses an ink-jet printer including a recording head which has a passage unit and an actuator. The passage unit is formed with nozzles which eject ink droplets and pressure chambers which communicate with the nozzles. The actuator applies ejection energy to ink contained in the pressure chambers. The ink-jet printer further includes a driver IC which generates a drive signal for driving the actuator. In the above-mentioned patent document, the actuator changes a volume of a pressure chamber and thereby applies pressure to ink contained in a pressure chamber. The actuator has a piezoelectric sheet which extends over a plurality of pressure chambers, a plurality of individual electrodes which are opposed to the respective pressure chambers, and a common electrode which cooperates with the plurality of individual electrodes to sandwich the piezoelectric sheets therebetween. A controller, which is on a higher level than the driver IC, simultaneously outputs a plurality of drive waveforms to the driver IC. Here, each of the plurality of drive waveforms includes one or more pulses, and corresponds to each of a plurality of driving patterns of the actuator. The driver IC selects any one of the plurality of drive waveforms which have been outputted from the controller, generates a drive signal including the selected waveform, and supplies the drive signal to an individual electrode. As a result, a portion of the piezoelectric sheet sandwiched between this individual electrode and the common electrode kept at a predetermined potential is applied with an electric field in a thickness direction, and thus this portion of the piezoelectric sheet deforms. At this time, a volume of the pressure chamber changes to apply pressure (ejection energy) to ink contained in the pressure chamber.